DISCLOSES THE TRAP.
The woman's words held me speechless.
She seemed so cold, so determined, so certain of her facts that I felt,
when I came to consider what I already had proved, that she was actually
telling me the ghastly truth.
And yet I loved Phrida. No. I refused to allow my suspicions to be
increased by this woman who had approached the police openly and asked
for payment for her information.
She was Phrida's enemy. Therefore it was my duty to treat her as such,
and in a moment I had decided upon my course of action.
"So I am to take it that both Digby and yourself are antagonistic towards
Phrida Shand?" I exclaimed, leaning against the round mahogany table and
facing her.
She did not speak for a few seconds, then, springing to her feet,
exclaimed:
"Would you excuse me for a few seconds? I forgot to give an order to my
servant who is just going out."
And she bustled from the room, leaving me alone with my own confused
thoughts.
Ah! The puzzling problem was maddening me. In my investigations I now
found myself in a cul-de-sac from which there seemed no escape. The net,
cleverly woven without a doubt, was slowly closing about my poor darling,
now so pale, and anxious, and trembling.
Had she not already threatened to take her own life at first sign of
suspicion being cast upon her by the police!
Was that not in itself, alas! a sign that her secret was a guilty one?
I knew not what to do, or how to act.
I suppose my hostess had been absent for about five minutes when the door
suddenly re-opened, and she entered.
"When we were interrupted, Mrs. Petre," I said, as she advanced towards
me, "I was asking you a plain question. Please give me a plain reply. You
and Phrida Shand are enemies, are you not?"
"Well, we are not exactly friends," she laughed, "after all that has
occurred. I think I told you that in London."
"I remember all that you told me," I replied. "But I want to know the
true position, if--whether we are friends, or enemies? For myself, it
matters not. I will be your friend with just as great a satisfaction as I
will be your enemy. Now, let us understand each other. I have told you,
I'm a man of business."
The woman, clever and resourceful, smiled sweetly, and in a calm voice
replied:
"Really, Mr. Royle, I don't see why, after all, we should be enemies,
that is, if what you tell me is the positive truth, that you owe my
friend Digby no ill-will."
"I owe no man ill-will until his perfidy is proved," was my reply. "I
merely went to Brussels to try and find him and request an explanation.
He charged me with a mission which I discharged with the best of my
ability, but which, it seems, has only brought upon me a grave
calamity--the loss of the one I love. Hence I am entitled to some
explanation from his own lips!"
"Which I promise you that you shall have in due course. So rest assured
upon that point," she urged. "But that is in the future. We are, however,
discussing the present. By the way--you'll take something to drink, won't
you?"
"No, thank you," I protested.
"But you must have something. I'm sorry I have no whisky to offer you,
but I have some rather decent port," and disregarding my repeated
protests, she rang the bell, whereupon the young man who had admitted
me--whom I now found to my surprise to be a servant--entered and bowed.
"Bring some port," his mistress ordered, and a few moments later he
reappeared with a decanter and glasses upon a silver tray.
She poured me out a glass, but refused to have any herself.
"No, no," she laughed, "at my time of life port wine would only make me
fat--and Heaven knows I'm growing horribly stout now. You don't know, Mr.
Royle, what horror we women have of stoutness. In men it is a sign of
ease and prosperity, in women it is suggestive of alcoholism and puts ten
years on their ages."
Out of politeness, I raised my glass to her and drank. Her demeanour had
altered, and we were now becoming friends, a fact which delighted me,
for I saw I might, by the exercise of a little judicious diplomacy, act
so as to secure protection for Phrida.
While we were chatting, I suddenly heard the engine of my taxi started,
and the clutch put in with a jerk.
"Why!" I exclaimed, surprised. "I believe that's my taxi going away. I
hope the man isn't tired of waiting!"
"No. I think it is my servant. I 'phoned for a cab for her, as I want her
to take a message into Colchester," Mrs. Petre replied. Then, settling
herself in the big chair, she asked:
"Now, why can't we be friends, Mr. Royle?"
"That I am only too anxious to be," I declared.
"It is only your absurd infatuation for Phrida Shand that prevents you,"
she said. "Ah!" she sighed. "How grossly that girl has deceived you!"
I bit my lip. My suspicions were surely bitter enough without the sore
being re-opened by this woman.
Had not Phrida's admissions been a self-condemnation to which, even
though loving her as fervently as I did, I could not altogether blind
myself.
I did not speak. My heart was too full, and strangely enough my head
seemed swimming, but certainly not on account of the wine I had drunk,
for I had not swallowed more than half the glass contained.
The little room seemed to suddenly become stifling. Yet that woman with
the dark eyes seemed to watch me intently as I sat there, watch me with a
strange, deep, evil glance--an expression of fierce animosity which even
at that moment she could not conceal.
She had openly avowed that the hand of my well-beloved had killed the
unknown victim because of jealousy. Well, when I considered all the facts
calmly and deliberately, her words certainly seemed to bear the impress
of truth.
Phrida had confessed to me that, rather than face inquiry and
condemnation she would take her own life. Was not that in itself
sufficient evidence of guilt?
But no! I strove to put such thoughts behind me. My brain was awhirl,
nay, even aflame, for gradually there crept over me a strange, uncanny
feeling of giddiness such as I had never before experienced, a faint,
sinking feeling, as though the chair was giving way beneath me.
"I don't know why, but I'm feeling rather unwell," I remarked to my
hostess. Surely it could not be due to my overwrought senses and my
strained anxiety for Phrida's safety.
"Oh! Perhaps it's the heat of the room," the woman replied. "This place
gets unpleasantly warm at night. You'll be better in a minute or two, no
doubt. I'll run and get some smelling salts. It is really terribly close
in here," and, rising quickly, she left me alone.
I remember that instantly she had disappeared a red mist gathered before
my eyes, and with a fearful feeling of asphyxiation I struggled
violently, and fell back exhausted into my chair, while my limbs grew
suddenly icy cold, though my brow was burning.
To what could it be due?
I recollect striving to think, to recall facts, to reason within myself,
but in vain. My thoughts were so confused that grim, weird shadows and
grotesque forms arose within my imagination. Scenes, ludicrous and
tragic, wildly fantastic and yet horrible, were conjured up in my
disordered brain, and with them all, pains--excruciating pains, which
shot through from the sockets of my eyes to the back of my skull,
inflicting upon me tortures indescribable.
I set my teeth in determination not to lose consciousness beneath the
strain, and my eyes were fixed upon the wall opposite. I remember now the
exact pattern of the wallpaper, a design of pale blue trellis-work with
crimson rambler roses.
I suppose I must have remained in that position, sunk into a heap in the
chair, for fully five minutes, though to me it seemed hours when I
suddenly became conscious of the presence of persons behind me.
I tried to move--to turn and look--but found that every muscle in my body
had become paralysed. I could not lift a finger, neither would my lips
articulate any sound other than a gurgle when I tried to cry out. And yet
I remained in a state of consciousness, half blotted out by those weird,
fantastic and dreamy shapes, due apparently to the effect of that wine
upon my brain.
Had I been deliberately poisoned? The startling truth flashed across my
mind just as I heard a low stealthy movement behind me.
Yes. I was helpless there, in the hands of my enemies. I, wary as I
believed myself to be, had fallen into a trap cunningly prepared by that
clever woman who was Digby's accomplice.
I now believed all that Edwards had told me of the man's cunning and his
imposture. How that he had assumed the identity of a clever and renowned
man who had died so mysteriously in South America. Perhaps he had killed
him--who could tell?
As these bitter thoughts regarding the man whom I had looked upon as a
friend flitted through my brain, I saw to my amazement, standing boldly
before me, the woman Petre with two men, one a dark-bearded,
beetle-browed, middle-aged man of Hindu type--a half-caste
probably--while the other was the young man who had admitted me.
The Hindu bent until his scraggy whiskers almost touched my cheek,
looking straight into my eyes with keen, intent gaze, but without
speaking.
I saw that the young man had carried a small deal box about eighteen
inches square, which he had placed upon the round mahogany table in the
centre of the room.
This table the woman pushed towards my chair until I was seated before
it. But she hardly gave me a glance.
I tried to speak, to inquire the reason of such strange proceedings, but
it seemed that the drug which had been given me in that wine had produced
entire muscular paralysis. I could not move, neither could I speak. My
brain was on fire and swimming, yet I remained perfectly conscious,
horrified to find myself so utterly and entirely helpless.
The sallow-faced man, in whose black eyes was an evil, murderous look,
and upon whose thin lips there played a slight, but triumphant smile,
took both my arms and laid them straight upon the table.
I tried with all my power to move them, but to no purpose. As he placed
them, so they remained.
Then, for the first time, the woman spoke, and addressing me, said in a
hard, harsh tone:
"You are Digby's enemy, and mine, Mr. Royle. Therefore you will now see
the manner in which we treat those who endeavour to thwart our ends. You
have been brave, but your valour has not availed you much. The secret of
Digby Kemsley is still a secret--and will ever be a secret," she added in
a slow, meaning voice.
And as she uttered those words the half-bred Indian took my head in his
hands and forced my body forward until my head rested upon the table
between my outstretched arms.
Again I tried to raise myself, and to utter protest, but only a low
gurgling escaped my parched lips. My jaws were set and I could not move
them.
Ah! the situation was the strangest in which I have ever found myself in
all my life.
Suddenly, while my head lay upon the polished table I saw the Hindu put a
short double-reed pipe to his mouth, and next instant the room was filled
with weird, shrill music, while at the same moment he unfastened the side
of the little box and let down the hinged flap.
Again the native music sounded more shrill than before, while the woman
and the young man-servant had retreated backward towards the door, their
eyes fixed upon the mysterious box upon the table.
I, too, had my eyes upon the box.
Suddenly I caught sight of something within, and next second held my
breath, realising the horrible torture that was intended.
I lay there helpless, powerless to draw back and save myself.
Again the sounds of the pipe rose and then died away slowly in a long
drawn-out wail.
My eyes were fixed upon that innocent-looking little box in horror and
fascination.
Ah! Something moved again within.
I saw it--saw it quite plainly.
I tried to cry out--to protest, to shout for help. But in vain.
Surely this woman's vengeance was indeed a fiendish and relentless one.
My face was not more than a foot away from the mysterious box, and when I
fully realised, in my terror, what was intended, I think my brain must
have given way.
I became insane!